Agriculture Blog

Where Did All The Farmers Go? 

Several times a year, I hear someone complain about the development of farm land in our area. These complainers consider it a crime that so much of our farm land has been converted to housing, business, shopping, etc. They seem to consider the farmers and developers to be criminals.

If you want to know why so many farmers have sold out to developers, allowed the land to grow houses instead of crops and left the farm life that their families enjoyed for generations – read on. Do you know why more and more farms are growing houses, stores and filling stations instead of cows, corn and potatoes? Do you know where the farmers went? Well, my father and I are farmers that left the farm. Most of our neighbors have too. Most of us still live in the area; we just don’t farm any more.

Few people understand the farming they espouse as so charming and worthy. It was long hours, hard work and little or no pay. Most farmers had less money at the end of the year, after expenses, than those who clerked in stores. Some years the earnings were less than costs, too many years in fact where even the best farmers lost money and had to sell land to survive.

…continue reading more about The Consequences of Agribusiness and Globalization»

Small Scale Farming May Be Courting An Indefinite Sun Set

Samoe has decided to leave crop cultivation for good! Once bitten, twice shy. He has been bitten many times. He has now decided that he was going to become a small scale cattle farmer. He had fenced their family farm, exhausting his savings. So he could not immediately start rearing cattle. He decided to try a hand in writing, an occupation that was familiar to him. Samoe is just among many young people abandoning small scale cultivation to try their hands in other things. Many factors are driving people away from their farms. Small scale farming is no longer a viable occupation and farmers in the third world do not have the resources to venture into high-tech and mechanized large scale farming. Small scale farmers now need support than ever before, if it is to become an attractive occupation and support the exploding population.

As many countries in the third world, especially Africa emerged from colonialism, many young people went to school to be able to get a white collar job and join the elite club that was emerging immediately after independence. And this was true for some time until the job market became saturated and industrialization stalled. One would think that since industrialization had stalled, agriculture was going to be the only alternative, but NO!

…continue reading more about Agriculture in the Third World»